After failing to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, James Hinchcliffe knew that he would be fighting an uphill battle for the remainder of the Verizon IndyCar Series season. Sunday, he made a major leap up that obstacle by winning the Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway.
“It's so nice to be back up top after kind of the season that we've had,” Hinchcliffe said. “ it’s really coming together now. We've had a lot of changes internally on the team, both before the season and mid-season, so it's been a bit of a balancing act trying to get all the right pieces in the right places, but I think this shows that we're starting to hit on something really good.”
Josef Newgarden lead 229 of the race’s 300 laps, and appeared to be well on his way to a second consecutive dominating victory after lapping all but 9 cars by lap 54. However, Hinchcliffe’s performance only peaked as Newgarden began to struggle in the dirty air of lapped traffic.
Once the Canadian – who last won at Iowa in 2013 – found his way around, there was no going back.
“Josef was just so dominant,” he said. “I didn't think we had anything for him. I thought we were kind of running for second to be honest, and then that last stop, the aero crew just nailed it on the pit stop, gave us a really good change, and the car just came alive.
“I was able to put it wherever I needed to to get through traffic, and that’s the only reason I was able to catch Josef and ultimately get by him was just our ability through traffic.”
Newgarden would settle for P4, unable to return to his early blistering pace.
Spencer Pigot impressed as the young American, running his first full season including ovals, improved from a P18 start to finish P2. At points, he would show a pace to match Hinchcliffe’s. Unfortunately for him, the late caution from contact between Takuma Sato and Ed Carpenter would end the race and thwart his chance to fight for a win.
Newgarden’s performance leapfrogged him into second in the championship standings, 33 points behind leader Scott Dixon who finished P12. Entering the weekend tied for second in standings, Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay both fell in the standings after Rossi stalled on pit lane and finished P9 and Hunter-Reay experienced electrical issues to finish P19.
The Verizon IndyCar Series next travels north of the border to the streets of Toronto, Canada to take on the Honda Indy Toronto on July 15.
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